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Watch: Fijian Drua stars combine for breathtaking 100-metre try against Chiefs
By Sam Smith
The Fijian Drua may have fallen short against the Chiefs by one point in Lautoka, but they still managed to produce one of the tries of the season on Saturday.
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A sold-out Churchill Park crowd were treated to a spectacle as Lautoka staged its first-ever Super Rugby match, with the Drua scoring three late tries to bring them within a whisker of victory.
While they couldn’t quite get across the line in their 35-34 defeat, the Drua provided their home fans with no shortage of entertainment throughout the course of the match.
Arguably the highlight of the contest, though, came as the game ticked into the final 10 minutes when standout wing Vinaya Habosi and midfielder Kalaveti Ravouvou combined to score a superb length-of-the-field try.
Backtracking to retrieve the ball from a Chiefs kick, Habosi scooped the ball up and shrugged off the defensive efforts of Emoni Narawa on his own tryline to instigate the long-range counter-attack.
The electric speedster then skipped through tackle attempts from Rameka Poihipi, Cortez Ratima and Ollie Norris inside his own 22 to march his way up to the 10-metre mark, where he was eventually taken down by Josh Ioane.
However, Habosi flung an offload away to the supporting Ravouvou, who cut in-field to deceive Bryn Gatland before bursting through a gap between Naitoa Ah Kuoi and Jonah Lowe.
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Neither one of Ah Kuoi or Lower were able to execute a tackle on Ravouvou, who was able to canter on home from 40 metres out with nobody else in front of him, much to the delight of the raucous crowd.
OH MY 🤯🤯🤯#DRUvCHI | #SuperRugbyPacific pic.twitter.com/wq5nc5aqD3
— Super Rugby Pacific (@SuperRugby) May 28, 2022
That try preceded two further tries to Apisalome Vota and Timoci Sauvoli, which brought the Drua to within touching distance of the Chiefs on the scoreboard, but the buffer proved to be a bridge too far to gap.
As such, the Drua’s inaugural season in Super Rugby Pacific has come to a close, while the Chiefs will host either the Hurricanes or Waratahs at FMG Stadium Waikato in Hamilton in next week’s quarter-finals.
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Ultimately it is the entire NZR board who should be sacked. Foster wants to be the ABs coach, you can't blame him for that. NZR appointed him in what was a terrible process for actually finding the right candidate, more of a coronation based on the false assumption of "continuity" - it was clear from the BIL tour in 2017 which direction the ABs were heading, continuing that seemed crazy by they decided to do it anyway. They then reappointed him before he had faced a true test before the NH tour of 2021 which was a disaster. They could have sacked him then. They could have sacked him after the Ireland series where it was clear the ABs were well of the pace. They could have done it after the tests in SA which despite being 1-1 were not in the least bit convincing. Basically they have backed the guy every year, but now in the lead up to the world cup they have decided he's definitely not the right guy, yet he remains the coach.
Go to comments"taking the land they felt had been stolen from them during the colonial era" the land had been stolen, and the requisitions were entirely justified. I'm very sorry that Negri's family were hurt but this article is basically just propaganda for apartheid.
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